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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23363239">A Grand Gesture</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound'>edenbound</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:22:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>636</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23363239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley feels, at the Ritz after the world didn't end, like this might be the moment for some kind of grand gesture.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Grand Gesture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because I needed to write something cute.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It feels like the moment for grand gestures.</p>
<p>Everything normal feels too small, too strange, and though much of the world has rearranged its memory around the last few strange days, <i>their</i> memories endure. Crowley cannot sit at this very ordinary table watching Aziraphale eating a very ordinary slice of cake -- though of course Aziraphale would no doubt argue that it is an <i>extraordinary</i> piece of cake, Crowley, please do try some -- and just let everything be as it was before. For better or worse.</p>
<p>So.</p>
<p>He reaches up and sweeps the sunglasses off with one smooth movement, a movement that looks practised because it <i>is</i>. He has practised keeping his cool in this moment for... far too long. He can feel Aziraphale's eyes on him as he flips the arms of the glasses closed and sets them down on the oh-so-white tablecloth.</p>
<p>It's not, of course, as though Aziraphale has never seen his eyes. Of course he has. Even putting the millennia before he thought of sunglasses aside, Crowley rarely keeps his sunglasses on when they're alone, at least not when they've had a glass of wine or two and they're socialising (fraternising). But they aren't alone. This is in public. In the eyes of God and everyone, so to speak, though Crowley knows it has always been silly to pretend that God was not aware of their clandestine meetings. If She did nothing about them, it was because they suited Her somehow. Be that as it may, here he is, and now Aziraphale can take him or leave him.</p>
<p>There is a tremor in Aziraphale's voice, when he speaks. "You know I -- I like your eyes, Crowley."</p>
<p>Crowley looks at him, bare-faced, his eyes slitted and demonic and... to this angel, beautiful. He knows it, without needing to be told, as he has known it all along without quite daring to listen. "I know," he says.</p>
<p>"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale breathes. He puts his hand on the table between them again, like a dare, like a game of chicken. Crowley's turn to reach out, again. He could draw this out, but it's taken 6,000 years already and he's hungry for what comes next. He's tired of savouring the appetiser.</p>
<p>He puts his hand over Aziraphale's, feels the strength of the hand below his. Everything up to now has been revocable. This isn't. He feels as if everyone's eyes are on them, and it's perhaps with the spirit of someone who has been tauntingly told he wouldn't dare, he pushes his fingers between Aziraphale's, linking their hands. He dares.</p>
<p>"Time to go home, angel?" he asks.</p>
<p>"Which one?" Aziraphale asks, dabbing at his mouth delicately with the cloth with his free hand. "Yours or mine?"</p>
<p>"Ours," Crowley says, with a shrug. "So, whichever you want." His heart pounds for a moment -- the audacity of claiming the bookshop could possibly in any way be his! -- but Aziraphale is smiling that fond, ridiculous smile.</p>
<p>"Ours," he agrees. He snaps his fingers and pays the bill in an instant, and Crowley has absolutely no doubt that he's added an absolutely eye-watering tip, to better the life of the exquisitely polite waiter who has been putting up with them for however long. He would be annoyed by the generosity, except he would have done the same thing, for the opposite reason. That much money hardly ever does one's morals any good, though it's awfully fun as long as you have it. "Shall we, dear? Dearest?"</p>
<p>Crowley slips his sunglasses into his pocket and rises. "Yes," he says, leading the way out.</p>
<p>He makes sure to fix the head waiter with a slit-pupilled stare on the way to the door, leaving him with an existential dread that will linger for days. Got to keep one's hand in, after all.</p>
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